She took the bowl with her and went back to his other side, gripped his hand again and held it.
He shivered and twitched, and she drew the blanket up to cover his bare chest, tucked him in and sidled closer.
Her heart growing heavier in her chest.
She stroked his cheek, her brow furrowing, and whispered, “I am sorry I kept you waiting so long.”
His face slackened, his lips parting as his trembling subsided, as if her words had comforted him and stolen his pain away.
She tightened her grip on his hand as silence rang around her, as she stared down at him and willed him to fight, to make it through the drain on his power and the tide of his emotions and come back to her.
Because she couldn’t lose him.
Chapter 10
Enyo lost track of time as she sat beside Keras, holding his hand, pressing a cold compress to his brow whenever the feverish sweats wracked him. She was only aware of him, of how those episodes that left him shaking and pale were coming closer and closer together.
Because he needed his pills?
At first, she had thought the episodes were the result of the drain on his strength caused by their fight and his going all out on her, manipulating shadows in a way she had never seen him do before.
Now, she felt they were in part that but only to a small degree.
He was coming down off his pills.
How many had he taken each day?
Anger blazed through her blood, but she tamped it down, focused on taking care of him as his hand tightened against hers and his lips parted on a strained groan. He twisted towards her, the black slashes of his eyebrows meeting hard as his face crumpled.
Enyo gently guided him onto his back again, held him there as he writhed, his legs coming up towards his stomach. She stroked his chest, hoping it would soothe him, hoping he would know that she was with him and she would get him through this.
When she had gone through her own withdrawal from ambrosia, it hadn’t been pretty. There had been a lot of vomiting. A lot of cursing. A lot of thrashing and moaning, and wanting to die.
A lot of blaming others.
Keras had been with her through it all, tending to her, giving her the strength she had desperately needed.
And he was kind enough that he had never uttered a word about how terrible she had been, how awful she had looked.
Shame ate at her and she caressed the smooth expanse of his chest, using it as a distraction for herself now. She didn’t want to think about those days, about how in the aftermath she had feared Keras would think less of her because he had seen her stripped bare, vulnerable and weak.
If he did, he had never let it show.
She lifted her hand and swept her fingers across the sculpted curve of his cheekbone, brushing the pointed tip of his sideburn, and feathered them down to his jaw. Her chest warmed as he stilled, relaxing into the bedding again, his breath leaving him on a sigh.
Voices in the distance tried to steal her focus but she shut them out, narrowed the world down to only Keras again, not wanting to think about his brothers or how angry they were with her. Marek might have forgiven her easily, and some of them thought she had done the right thing, but she felt sure her actions would have consequences.
She wasn’t sure she’d had their trust before she had confronted Keras.
Now she felt sure that she didn’t have it.
She picked her name out of the conversation, was tempted to listen but denied that need. No good would come of listening in on what the brothers were discussing. She was sure of that too. Most of them probably wanted her gone, as far away from Keras as she had been these last two centuries.
Softer female voices joined the deeper masculine ones, stirring jealousy in her heart, rousing a voice that hissed things at her that had her focus slipping to the women and the brothers.
To the mansion that surrounded her.
This place felt like a home.
She had never been anywhere like it.
Her home with her brother in Olympus was nothing like this place. Her family was nothing like these people.
Her brother Ares had made it clear that the place where she lived was his home, and that he expected her to follow his orders to the letter, making her feel as if he viewed her as his property. He gave her little freedom, other than allowing her to go to war in the mortal world whenever it was necessary, either with him or without him if he felt the war was more of a skirmish and beneath him.
It was always good enough for her though.
Because he truly believed that she was beneath him?
She shut down that line of thought, didn’t want to think about her brother or their relationship right now. Her mood was too low, placing her in danger of traversing routes that would only lead to pain, to revelations that she wasn’t equipped to handle in her current state.
Not without needing a hit of ambrosia.
She eased Keras through another attack, mopping his brow with one hand and holding him down with her other.
“Shh, Keras,” she murmured, low enough that she was sure no one would hear her. “I am here. Rest easy.”
She wished she could do more for him than tend to him physically and speak to him. She wished she could steal the vile poison from his blood. The embers in her own veins ignited again, blazing fiercely in her heart, goading her into giving in to her anger.
To confronting the one she held responsible for Keras’s addiction.
When Keras settled again, she realised she wasn’t alone.
She glanced over her shoulder at Megan. Another woman stood beside her. The young furie, Marinda.
“We thought you might need some clean things.” Megan waddled over to her, one hand on her pregnancy bump and the other holding a thick wad of cream material and a towel.
Marinda followed her into the room, carrying a bowl of water. Strands of spun gold that had fallen loose from the plait that arched over the front of her hair fell down and brushed her forehead and cheeks as she set the bowl down on the mats and picked up the one Enyo had been using. She swept them back as she straightened.
Her tropical blue eyes lingered on Keras, her French accented voice grave as she asked, “How is he doing?”
“I do not know.” Enyo’s gaze fell to his face again. “Better… I hope… but I am not sure.”
Marinda took the towels and cloths from Megan, and Megan placed a hand on Enyo’s shoulder.
“He’ll pull through. They all have a stubborn streak.” Megan’s soft words offered comfort, had Enyo nodding.
“Like their father. Hades can be… immovable.” Enyo had witnessed it many times for herself during her visits to the Underworld. She looked up at Megan. “How is your Ares?”
“My Ares?” She blinked and then her eyes widened, her mouth opening in an O. “Because your brother is Ares. Well, my Ares is doing good apparently. He’s stable. Which is a relief for both of us, I think.”
Megan rubbed her stomach through her orange sweater.
“She calmed down around the time his power settled.”
A female child.
Keras had looked so worried when he had announced that.
Enyo vowed that she would ensure that nothing happened to Megan or the baby, not while he was sleeping and not in all their days. She would be there to protect them with the brothers.
“It’s dinner time. Well… it should be breakfast really but we’re all kinda nocturnal now.” Megan squeezed Enyo’s shoulder. “Do you want to eat something?”